Traditionally, a pharmaceutical preparation has been dispensed using devices such as syringes. The syringe is usually filled manually by aspirating a liquid pharmaceutical component from a pharmaceutical vial having a neck with a penetrable closure into the syringe through a needle that penetrates the penetrable closure. The method of manually filling the syringe typically includes the steps of drawing air into the body of the syringe until the volume of air in the body approximately equals the volume of pharmaceutical component to be loaded into the syringe and subsequently inserting the needle through the penetrable closure into the vial.
Many pharmaceutical preparations must be distributed and stored as two or more separate components—a typical example would be a lyophilized component and a liquid component such as a diluent. The two components are mixed just prior to administration.
Some medical treatments require the administration of a pharmaceutical composition wherein one of the components of the pharmaceutical composition can be considered to be dangerous due to toxicity or other factors. In other words, the toxic component may have to be diluted in order to provide a composition having the desired properties. Naturally, great care must be exercised when using such toxic components and access to the same needs to be limited.